Elephant Hill Park Pictures

Elephant Hill Park Introduction

IntroductionElephant Hill Park is in the city of Guilin, next to the Li River, which is composed of Elephant Trunk Hill, pavilions, buildings and temples. It covers 2.99 hectares. It has several features: - Water Moon Cave (Shuiyue dong), Elephant's Eye Stone, and Pagoda for Puxian and Yunfeng Temple.The Elephant Trunk Hill is not o­nly o­ne of the sights of Guilin, but also the symbol of the city. It is basically a large lump of rock with a big hole in it. It looks like an elephant standing o­n the bank of river and taking water with its trunk. The hole is 17 meters long, 9.5 meters wide and 12 meters high. At night the water beneath the hole mirrors the moon. It looks as if the moon is floating o­n the water. This view is referred to as 'Elephant Hill Fixing the Moon'.Guilin is located in low latitude，having the subtropical monsoon climate-- moderate climate, abundant rain and light supply—its average temperature is 19.3 degree. Guilin has warm winters and cool summers, the autumn is considered as the optimum time to travel.

Elephant Hill Park Features

Highlight The legend of how the rock came to be goes something like this: a magic elephant came each night to drink from the the Li River. The elephant drank so much that it was drinking the river dry! The emperor prayed for the elephant’s destruction and o­ne night, the gods answered his prayers by thrusting a sword between the elephant’s shoulders when he came for his nightly drink. The elephant didn’t just die, though: it turned to stone. The Puxian Pagoda sprang up where the sword entered the elephant and is still there today.Water Moon Cave Between the elephant trunk and its body space a round cave which resembles a full moon drifting o­n the water, thus the name. When in a full moon night, the water waves and the moon glitters form a fantastic scene which has been highly honored by poets, painters over history. In and out of the cave are many carvings and inscriptions, the most well known of which is a poem by Lu You, o­ne of the four great poets of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279).Elephant Eye Cave Climbing through the snaking stone path highway up to the hill, visitor will see another cave going through the hill, the Elephant Eye Cave. With a height of around 2 meters, the cave spans 5 to 10 meters in width, about 52 meters in length. it’s so called for the cave located right at the site for eyes. A look through the cave affords a good view of the surroundings.Puxian PagodaOn top of the hill stands the Puxian Pagoda. Built in the Ming Dynasty, the cylinder shaped pagoda looks like the handle of a sword.